


It Happened Again

by warcatscat



Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Bullying, Gen, Negative Self Talk, Panic Attacks, Self-Hatred, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-13
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2019-06-09 16:28:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 661
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15271563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warcatscat/pseuds/warcatscat
Summary: Virgil is trying his best, but it never seems to be enough for the darker voices in his head.





	It Happened Again

**Author's Note:**

> I am Warcats-Cat on tumblr, and you can find my writing also under the tag 'warcats writes'. This is the first fic I ever posted, and I recently decided to actually make use of my Ao3 account, so I am putting everything up here too. I'd like to thank tumblr user @ironwoman359 for being my beta for all of my fics so far; she has been really helpful as well as jut a very pleasant voice in my notes. I hope you enjoyed the fic! Thanks for reading!

Virgil was exhausted. The feeling was deep in his core; a weight that wound its way around his bones, knotted along the fraying fibers of his muscles, knotted in his stomach, suffocated his heart. An exhaustion that he felt came both from nowhere and pinpointed to years of poor sleeping habits, aggravated lately by increased stress.

He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror blankly, his hand ghosting the motions of removing his makeup but never actually making a move to do so. He could hear rain outside, even if it probably wasn’t _actually_ raining in the mindscape; it just felt like a day that should be rainy, cold. Glassed-over eyes stared back at him, and his shoulders slumped.

Virgil was exhausted.

“ **It happened again** ” said a voice, both in his head and ringing from his reflection in the mirror. It was a strong voice; powerful, and disappointed.

“What?”

“ **It happened _again_.** ”

He tried to manage a placating smile at his reflection. “Yeah?” It was half-asking, half stating. He couldn’t help the panic attacks. Even with medicine and talking with the others, the anxiety itself wasn’t going to go away. He couldn’t keep one from happening sometimes; it wasn’t like one of Roman’s magic curses. It couldn’t be cured with the snap of someone’s fingers and a few light words.

“ **It _happened_ again** ” the voice responded, the mirror image twisting to something akin to an angrier version of himself, staring at him with the contempt one shows a cockroach or a glob of mud on the bottom of your shoe.

“I did what I could. I am _doing_ what I _can_.” He responded, perhaps more to himself than the shadow in his mirror. And he was; sometimes just asking for help was the hardest. But he was making the effort. He _was_ trying to manage his anxiety - himself.

“ **Again.** ” As if to mean, ‘how dare you?’

“I’m doing what I can.” He repeated, frustrated. His hands began shaking, the tension in his body looking for release in any way it could find. “It’s not my fault. I’m doing what I can right now.” He was trying to reason with his own exhaustion, his own doubt. But worse, he was trying to reason with a force that somehow existed also outside of himself, who expected miracle cures and normalcy from him overnight; something or someone that somehow expected the problem to disappear.

“ ** _It happened again._** ” Virgil felt his stomach curl, his whole body feeling the curve of his spine without his muscles moving an inch. He could hear in his head the hateful, expectant word, ‘ **Again** ' rolling over and over; through his ears, and down into his skull, piercing his brain over and over like a child poking at a spider with toothpicks, or the demanding and degrading chants of a group of mocking peers screaming and name calling.

How dare he not be better? How dare he try to get better and not have immediate results? How dare he take his time, trying to get used to the changes in his world that were medicine and trying to be open. How dare he seek help, and be vocal. How dare he have a problem in the first place.

Bile churned in Virgil’s stomach; vomit reaching for a way out, and turned his back on the mirror in the attempt to appease the feeling. The incessant rhythm of dry-heaving on his knees kept time with the voice in his head, the beat swelling around him until he lay on the bathroom floor trying desperately to calm himself down and cry out the toxicity of his own thoughts.

It happened again. How dare he not be better.

It happened again. How dare he be sick.

It happened again. How dare he lay here crying when he should be working to fix his broken mind.

It happened again. How dare he be broken in the first place.

It happened again.

Virgil was exhausted.


End file.
